


still on fire

by meanstoflourish



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Flashbacks, Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 07:09:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16035491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meanstoflourish/pseuds/meanstoflourish
Summary: Alex wants children, Maggie doesn’t, they break up because of it. That’s how their story ends. Twelve years later, it starts again.





	1. prologue

_I had four dreams in a row where you were burned, about to burn, or still on fire._

 

.

.

.

  


The noise had been too much.

It’s the first time Alex fabricates DEO matters to have some time away from her family, and the shame it makes her feel is almost overshadowed by the sheer relief the silence brings her. Of course, the busy National City streets are not truly quiet, but compared to the screaming and crying of two energetic little boys, the hustle and bustle of the city is positively relaxing.

Alex loves her nephews, she does, but she swears her headaches as of late are stress related.

She’d never been around children so young before the twins had joined the family, and she’d never thought much about it, but she hadn’t known it could possibly be this hard. She knows Kara doesn’t like hearing it, but Alex blames it on the boys' life before her sister and James adopted them. Young brains develop incredibly fast, and even a single month without proper care at the hands of an unfit mother can do a lot of damage. The twins had two entire years of that. And they were catching up to their peers in weight and height, but there were still so many things that could set them off. The most recent comes to mind, Julian kicking Kara’s stomach so hard it prompted her sister to give her a call at 3am, even though they both knew there was nothing she could do if something was wrong with the baby.

Alex briefly wishes Camille had been there to see Ty screaming his head off and throwing his plate on the floor because he didn’t want to have lunch, but then anger floods her at the thought of blonde hair and blue eyes, and she pushes it away.

Alex hadn’t pictured any of this when she’d thought about adoption. When she was younger, it had seemed like the most simple choice, the better choice. Simply giving a home to a child who needed one, who would look up to her, who she could help with their reading and who would listen to her describe the constellations like her dad had done for her. Then the amount of paperwork and home visits that she couldn’t accept had made themselves known, and she’d looked at other options. But not until the twins had she thought about it thoroughly, had considered the kids themselves. Their pasts and trauma and everything they would require. She wanted to be a mom, but could she be a mom to a child who didn’t want one, or had been so let down by their biological one they thought they didn’t? She’d failed to see that the children up for adoption wouldn’t be perfect, and she was no James, she couldn’t decide to work from home most of the time just to look after them. Even after the DEO went public, and she and Camille could go ahead with it…she’d wanted to say yes, but she hadn’t been sure. And that doubt had been enough. That left them the other options and…Alex sighs.

She’s certainly not walking away from anything if she can’t clear her brain even for a second. She looks around, forcing herself to get out of her head, and she realizes she’s walked a good 10 blocks from Kara’s apartment. There’s some sort of festival going on a couple blocks ahead, and she decides she might as well walk through it before doubling back.

She quickly realizes it’s not a festival at all, but a race of sorts. People walk around with numbers pinned to their shirts, and there’s an overabundance of dogs, some of who are also sporting numbers pinned to their dog shirts. Alex rolls her eyes, even as she finds the sight amusing. Kara would have a field trip here. She never quite outgrew her love for animals dressed up as humans. Alex can only think of the scratches Tom would dole out if she ever thought about dressing him up.

A particularly gorgeous German Shepherd walks by, more interested in smelling every inch of the sidewalk than agreeing to follow its owner. She stifles a smile, feeling terrible for finding funny how the small woman stumbles as the large dog propels her forward when it decides to move on.

Alex’s breath catches in her throat when the woman turns around.

She’d know Maggie anywhere.

The rest of the world falls away as she sets eyes on long, dark brown hair and olive skin for the first time in years. Maggie’s hair is shorter, dark waves resting on her shoulders, and her dimples, which pop out as she chastises the dog, are even deeper. She looks even more beautiful than she did the last time she saw her, the day they broke up. She looks like she hasn’t aged a day, and it transports Alex back to those moments, back to that relationship that even a decade later she still remembers keenly. Makes her think of the things she regrets, even now, _especially_ now.

Maggie would always be the one that got away.

She can’t control her own feet as they carry her forward, and she almost gasps as she hears her voice. Her heart jumps in her chest, and she tells herself it’s just the shock of seeing her again what’s making her body go into overdrive.

“Please,” Maggie pleads with the dog. “You’re the worst of my kids, Minnie. Come on!”

“Maggie?” The word is out of her lips before she can think about it. She doesn’t consider the consequences, or the way they left things, or if Maggie hates her, even after a decade. She just wouldn’t forgive herself if she saw her and let her go. As far as she knew, Maggie had left the country. After sending her her passport they never contacted each other again, and Alex never used DEO resources to find out. Maybe she’d gone on vacation. Maybe she’d moved to China and just recently came back. Alex doesn’t get to know, she’s keenly aware she doesn’t get anything from Maggie anymore.

But maybe she gets a hello.

 

Maggie looks up, and Alex feels another lurch in her chest when she meets those warm brown eyes once more. She really hasn’t changed. Alex sees cold mornings spent under warm sheets in those eyes, playing hookie from work to get vegan ice cream and having someone to tell about her bruises, being told about similar bruises in return. She’s never ridden her motorcycle beside anyone else. She'd really loved her, hadn't she?

Surprise dawns across Maggie’s features, her eyes roving over her.

“Alex.” It’s a statement, not a question. A small, confused smile appears, accompanying a frown. “I, uh...” She licks her lips. “It’s been a while.”

Alex nods, the shock of seeing her fading by the minute, now that she’s convinced she’s a person and not a figment of her overtired brain. She’d never thought she’d see her again. The country was immense, and the world even more so. And she’d sent Maggie her passport, Maggie had _left_. And she’s here now.

Something nudges her knee, and Alex looks down to find a dog licking her knee.

“Minnie!” Maggie exclaims, pulling on the leash, but the German Shepherd barely budges. Alex chuckles.

“She…she yours?”

Maggie looks up at her, and her tiny bewildered smile grows. They’re here, they’re talking. Is Maggie thinking what she is? Across time and space, what are the chances she’d meet her in a busy street over a decade after they saw each other last?

“Yes,” Maggie tells her, patting the dog’s head. “Adopt, don’t shop,” she says, pointing towards her shirt. _‘5k in Benefit of Hope for Paws_ ’ it reads, in bold purple letters. A number is pinned on the hem of her shirt. “I’m here for the race.”

“Yeah. I-I figured. With the whole…” She signals toward her outfit, the leggins and running sneakers that accompany the shirt. Maggie nods. It feels so normal and wonderful Alex is almost dizzy with it.

“What can I say, I’m the proud mommy of a rescue,” Maggie says.

“I thought you didn’t want to be-” She stops herself at the last second, trapping the words inside her mouth. The inappropriate joke fizzles out. Her brain seems to still lack a filter around the woman, even after all these years. But Maggie isn’t angry, in fact, she keeps smiling.

“Thought I didn’t want to be a mom?” She asks goodnaturedly, as if that single fact—that Alex failed to compromise on or overcome, 12 years ago, and which ended their engagement and changed her life— didn’t matter. Maybe it doesn’t, for her. Not anymore.

“I’m s-”

“No, it’s okay!” Maggie says. “It’s been a long time. I think we can joke about it.” If Maggie doesn’t actually mean it, Alex can’t tell.

Maggie points down at the dog.

“Her name is Mignonette.”

“Wow,” Alex says. And she’d thought Getrude was bad. She closes her eyes for a second, as she’s assaulted by the memories. She thought she was going to die—she’d almost died, in fact—and Maggie had given her so much hope with the simple promise of a dog. Of their lives together. Well, she can see how that turned out.

“I know,” Maggie says, and Alex frowns before she realizes Maggie isn’t privy to what’s going on inside her head, and she’s still talking about her dog’s name. “We call her Minnie for short.”

Alex leans down slightly.

“Hey, Minnie,” she coos, letting the dog sniff her hand. “Hi, girl.” The dog licks her hand, and her knee again for good measure, before inspecting a nearby trash can. Alex looks up at Maggie. “Are you...are you back?”

She isn’t sure if Maggie just recently returned, but National City—although a big city—isn’t big enough to hide Maggie from her for any amount of years. Kara had seen Maggie at the precinct after their breakup, while on Supergirl business. James had seen her at a bar. If she’d been around, she would have known.

Maggie knows, confirming her thoughts.

“I am,” she says. “For good.” Her smile shifts into something proud, an elusive third dimple shining through. “You’re looking at the new Captain of the National City Police Department.”

Maggie shines as she says the words, pride radiating off her in waves. Her dream, realized. Alex is so happy for her.

“Congratulations.”

Before Maggie can say more, a teenage girl walks up to them sporting a similar shirt. . The dog—Minnie—almost pulls Maggie with it as she tries to reach the girl faster.

“Ma, are we ready?” she asks, looking at Maggie.

Alex straightens up. Suddenly she feels dizzy.

“Did you go to the bathroom already?” Maggie asks, reaching for a younger girl that so far had been obscured by the teenager. Maggie zips up her jacket with care.

“Yeah,” the girl answers.

“We won’t be able to go in the middle of the race,” Maggie reminds her, poking her belly. The girl smiles.

She has dimples, deep lovely dimples on both of her cheeks.

“Hi,” the teenager says, and it takes Alex a second to realize she’s talking to her. “Are you from the police department too?”

Alex shakes her head. “DEO,” she answers, her throat tight.

“Alex is an old friend of mine,” Maggie tells both girls, while Alex’s mind is running a thousand miles per hour. _Ma._ Maggie has children. That little girl had dimples just like hers.

Alex twists the wedding band on her finger, the nervous habit doing nothing to calm the deluge of thoughts currently flooding her brain.

“I’m sorry, I have to go,” she says suddenly, her voice even. “It was good to see you, Maggie,” she tells her, forcing a quick smile. Maggie extends her hand for a polite handshake, and Alex obligues. “And it was nice to meet you,” she tells the girls, even though she’s done nothing of the sort, before she turns around and walks back to the security of her own space.

Even once she’s gotten there, her hand is still burning.


	2. Chapter 2

Maggie sits on her bed, wrapped in her towel, wondering, thinking.

She’s still reeling from the surprise of seeing Alex again, even if it was somewhat muted because she knew moving back to National City meant seeing her again. Supergirl was still in National City, which meant Kara was still here, which meant Alex hadn’t moved. She knew she’d see her. And if Alex was still with the DEO, which she was when they came out of the shadows a few years ago, then it was a given that as Captain they’d have to have some sort of working relationship.

Seeing Alex…it didn’t hurt. It ached, soft and muted, somewhere in the deepest parts of her, but the surprise had been the most overwhelming feeling. Her hair was longer, falling in two straight curtains to her shoulders as opposed to the short waves Maggie had been accustomed to. There were wrinkles in the corners of her eyes, and below them. Her eyes hadn't changed at all. There had been laughter lines, too, and Maggie hopes it means Alex had been able to find happiness too, like she did.

She’d always felt that way. It had been hard, in those early days, when Alex had seemed her one source of happiness and also the reason why everything had gone to shit, but she’d never been able to hate her. Frustration she was familiar with, that feeling that she wasn’t enough, and never would be, for anybody.

But Kate had changed all of that. Michelle and AJ had changed all of that. She barely remembers what it feels like to come up short no matter what she does. Hell, her youngest daughter still looks at her with stars in her eyes, as though Maggie knows all the secrets to the universe, and she’s dreading the day she outgrows that. 12 years ago, the thought of meaning so much to someone when she’s so imperfect would have knocked her on her ass. Now, she appreciates it. She doesn’t have to be perfect. Her best is enough, she is enough. At least for her daughters she is.

And as she thinks about them, she can’t help but wonder about Alex’s. Her kids, her wife, her life.

She’s even wondering about Kara, as a quick look at the National City Enquirer before she moved showed that Dreamer and Brainiac-5 had been doing the brunt of the heroe-ing, with Supergirl only making an appearance every once in a while. Blogs said a source close to her had confirmed she married a human man, and the same speculation over Superman and his possible child surrounded her.

She’s curious, and when she thinks about it, what damage could it do to just reach out? She had to write to the director of the DEO anyways, maybe she could turn that into an actual visit and take a detour. Alex was sub-director when the DEO came out of the shadows, it’d be entirely a professional responsibility on behalf of the NCPD to strengthen ties with the DEO. Maggie smiles to herself. She can’t even fool herself with that one.

The only reason she moved her family back now was for the job, and because everyone needed a new start.

She’s going to be Captain of the precinct that saw her go from a simple uniform to a detective in record time. The city in which her heart was mended and then broken all over again. She’s a different person now. She moved on. She got married, she has children. (And Alex obvious surprise at the fact, possibly what made her abruptly leave, makes a dark feeling she can’t name flood her chest. Alex hadn’t given her a choice, or time. She’d been blindsided in every way.) Maggie shakes her head. She’s glad things went the way they went, because, as she hears AJ ask her sister to call the pizza place because it’s taking too long, she’s reminded that she wouldn’t have what she does now if anything had gone differently. Alex was her worst break up, her most painful heartbreak. But she can’t be haunted by the ghosts of the past still.

Besides, they probably all needed to talk to someone new. She’d been too busy with the paperwork involved in transferring to the new precinct, and enrolling the girls in school, she’d barely seen her friends in the weeks before the big move. Not that she was close with them anyways, that was all Kate.

Alex could be, in a strange way, what her family needs. Her kids could play with her own, in a twist of fate that Maggie never saw coming. Alex could let her know what had changed in the last decade in the city. They could be…friends, she guesses. The prospect is daunting, but it’s also safe. Years ago, before the girls, before Kate…Maggie would’ve never been able to consider it. It would have hurt too much, and she wouldn’t have been able to stand next to Alex without remembering either every moment they spent without their clothes on, or making all those plans for a future that would never come to pass.

But now…things have changed. And she hadn’t only lost a fiancee after their breakup, but the closest friend she’d made since she was a kid. Their love is long gone, but somewhere in there, Maggie wonders if they can still salvage a friendship.

“Ma! The pizza is here!”

“Money is on the table!” she yells back.

She goes about getting dressed, her legs still pleasantly loose from the run. She hasn’t had time to exercise lately, and she knows she’s going to feel it tomorrow. She needs to make time to run.But their apartment is farther away from the park than…Alex’s had been. The last place she’d lived in this city had been hers. Maggie pulls her shirt into place, exiting her bedroom. Maybe talking to Alex again isn’t such a good idea. She can make new friends, she guesses. She can’t just expect Alex, and everyone that came with her—Kara, J’onn, Winn, James—to still be friendly with her. In fact, she left without saying goodbye. She’s pretty sure they all must have hated her back then.

Maggie huffs, wondering how she can talk herself out of and into reaching out to Alex in the same breath. Fully dressed, she makes her way into the living room slash kitchen. AJ munches on a slice of pizza, Michelle by her side, on her cell phone. A plate with a slice already awaits her, and she takes her seat at the head of the table.

“Thanks,” she tells Michelle. She nods.

“She got the plates but I served the pizza,” AJ pipes up. Maggie squeezes her shoulder absentmindedly.

“Thanks, sweetie.”

Maggie serves them all glasses of soda—she’d long ago given up on not drinking the carbonated, sweet poison—and then tries to remember if she packed up her scotch. She had a half full bottle of the good kind, and tonight seems just like the night to have a finger or two with a book before bed.

“Mommy, can we get ice cream after dinner?” AJ says suddenly, looking up at her. She bats her eyelashes, but Maggie is immune to her green eyes by now. Mostly.

“Oh, there’s this new app, if they don’t get it here in ten minutes it’s supposed to be free,” Michelle says. “Can we try it? Just for…research purposes.”

Maggie smiles. “Well, I can’t argue with that, can I?”

 

.

_2017_

_Maggie cries more than she ever remembers crying in her entire fucking life._

_Granted, she’s drunk for most of that first week, so her perception of the world is a bit skewed, but she can’t remember ever feeling as wrecked as she does. When she resurfaces, she moves out of the hotel and into an apartment so small it rivals her very first one, solely because the rent is cheap and she sold most of her stuff when she moved in with Alex, so she has to buy it all again. A microwave is first, and she lives off Cup Noodles for longer than she wants to admit._

_It’s simple, and she’s just so, so tired. Tired of never living up to anyone’s expectations, of coming up short, of not being enough, time and time again. She’d actually thought it would be different with Alex. She’d been so stupid._

_She allows herself a month and nothing more. Then, she plans, and that plans leads her to do what she does best. Leaving. Alex had helped packed her bag, in a single terrible moment reminding her of her own father, but Maggie thinks her heart remains in that apartment until the moment she applies to the International Police Association’s Active-Officer Exchange Program. She’s glad she joined for the brownie points years ago, because she gets it, and suddenly the only thing standing between her and 3 months overseas, away from the shit-show her life has become, is her lack of a passport._

_She left it at Alex’s. Of course. Because God has a terrible sense of humor._

_She contemplates saying she lost it and going through the hassle of getting a new one, but she decides Alex is not going to She gets as close to wasted as she can while still being able to type properly, and then gives herself 10 minutes to write a message and send it. She’d tried doing it sober, and regardless of how many weeks it had been since that night, she hadn’t managed to do it. What if Alex had texted back immediately? What if she’d offered to drop it off in person? Or worse, asked Maggie to pick it up? Asking her to send it had been the right thing to do, and her drunk brain managed it with only minimal typos, which she realizes the following morning._

_Alex sends her passport._

_And then Maggie’s on her way to London._

_._

 

Maggie drapes the blanket over AJ’s sleeping form.

She’d fallen asleep halfway through telling Kate about the pistachio ice cream they had for dessert, and Maggie still couldn’t erase the smile from her face. AJ was precious, and the conversation had made Maggie’s heart ache for the best of reasons. They’d raised an amazing kid, they really had. Maggie brushes a kiss over her forehead, and then turns off the lights, exiting her room.

She knows she’ll wake up to AJ climbing on her bed at 3am, but for now, she’s asleep in her own bedroom.

For the first time in years, her thoughts circle back to Alex. She guesses it can’t be helped, as she’s transported back to those days where she couldn’t see children in her future. Alex had thought about it too, today, if her attempt at a joke hadn’t been obvious enough.

Maggie isn’t sure how to feel about that. She would never change the way things turned out, but she wonders if Alex would. She hadn’t given her time, had she? To reconsider, or think, or compromise. They’d just ended so fast she’d been blindsided, hurting with the whiplash of losing her friends, her fiancee, and her home—all in a single day. She hums. Maybe therapy had actually helped put her feelings into words.

She knocks on Michelle’s door on her way to her room.

“You have class tomorrow!” she tells her.

“And if I’d been asleep you'd have woken me,” Michelle fires back. Maggie chuckles, opening her bedroom door just a smidge.

“Look, you’re 16, you can go to sleep whenever you want to,” she tells her. “But just saying, I’m not gonna be the one looking like a zombie tomorrow morning.” Michelle rolls her eyes good-naturedly, but she dutifully puts her cellphone on her nightstand.

“Night, ma.”

“Goodnight,” she tells her. She turns off lights as she goes, and then enters her bedroom. She ends up finding the bottle of scotch wrapped in newspaper, in a box marked “Delicate”. She opens it, and take a sip straight from the bottle before getting into bed and cracking open her novel. She’d never been one for reading, but she finds these days it helps her decompress. She finds a ridiculous description of a police interrogation, and she’s about to explain it out loud when she realizes she can’t. She’s the only person in the room.

Maggie runs her finger over her ring as she continues to read, certain one of these days she’s going to rub off the gold from the smooth wedding band.

She falls asleep wishing for a goodnight kiss from her wife.

**Author's Note:**

> You're dropped in the middle of the story so things will get clearer as you go along. Let me know what you thought!


End file.
